5. Chapter 5
Chapter five
G reg Talisof is staring at me, dead-eyed through the glass. The old bruise of a black eye on him is turning green now. I guess they're not fond of old-lady killers in here. "You knew Sharna Wells."
More than knew her… sent her after me, for putting him in here. But only I know that. And Needler, but I'm not counting him since I don't really know who he is. I arrived early. Dirk will be here soon. Since the Needler is the number-one suspect for Sharna, we've been allowed to come and question Greg.
"I knew her," he concedes. For a killer, he has a poor poker face. I almost see tears in his eyes. What did Needler say? Erotic mother-figure? "They say it was Needler?"
"That’s correct."
"Cyanide?" he asks.
I remember her cut-off scream, the waterfall of glass. My lips tighten. "No,” I tell him, but don’t give him more detail. “She was the one who switched the pills, wasn't she? Or was she the one that picked the victims?"
His jaw works. "We did everything together."
My gaze narrows. "She must have been pretty mad at me, then. When she came to visit you a week ago."
Only staring back at me, he says nothing. I know he's trying to work out what happened, why I'm not dead and she is. How the Needler got involved. But to say anything is as good as admitting to attempted murder. That would land him in a place worse than this. Lethal injection, maybe. "She didn't mention it," he says flatly.
Dirk arrives then, but it takes Greg another few minutes to take his eyes off me. I feel slimy under his gaze and have trouble tuning into the standard questions Dirk is pressing him with. Did Sharna mention being followed, and did she have any connection to the politics… etcetera. But I don't need to be following closely to gather from Dirk's expression as we leave that this was largely a waste of time.
"Just another dead psycho with connections to a live one," he says the minute we step out of the facility.
***
"For pities sake, what ?"
"What?"
Dirk shrugs, opening his palms against the steering wheel. "You keep staring at me, El. I'd be flattered except that I feel like you're looking for something."
God, have I been that obvious? I look away, though that’s not much help now. "Sorry. I haven't been sleeping well."
"And that’s suddenly a problem just now?"
"What if Needler, Cocooner, any of them that we can't catch? What if they're closer than we think? And I don't mean the conspiracies of Tristan being Cocooner, but among us, now."
We're stopped at a light. Dirk fixes me with a look. "You know, I'd almost think you were suggesting I was one of them if that wasn't totally bat-shit."
I look away. "Not you." Except yes, definitely him. "I just feel like we're missing something."
"Personally, I'm missing a sunny beach and bottomless margaritas."
I roll my eyes. Same old Dirk. "You'd burn to a crisp in like a minute. You're better off here."
"Did I not mention the bikini-clad beauty to rub sunscreen all over me?"
I snort. "You'd still find a reason not to like her enough."
Not disagreeing, Dirk shoots me a look, then breaks into a grin. "Probably, yeah."
***
I can hardly sleep that night. Needler's last visit is with me still, a mix of guilt and guilty pleasure. And his words. That wasn't our deal, just a precursor. The deal will be much more involved. I kept expecting to wake up to his shape in the corner. And then…
Come an overcast morning, and the dim light working its way through my blinds, I’m horrified to find myself disappointed that nothing happened. Just because it means another sleepless night, I tell myself.
All this just to mean that I'm not the best lunch date for poor Seb. We get crepes near the station, some place where the ice cream is already half-melted by the time they bring the plate out. It’s started to rain again. I watch the water droplets work their way down the fogged window. "N-no luck on your case?"
I blink, coming back to the present, to the man I should be thinking about. "Not really, no."
"When will he be… you know, n-next?"
I blow air out through my mouth. “He hasn’t been on schedule much lately. We've got a month, or three, if he's sticking to absent-moon nights, which he appears to be. But he's just too careful. You'd think something would have matched someone by now, with the amount he's done."
"Like Cocooner. They k-keep getting away with it."
I rub my forehead. "Yeah. Arguably worse things, too." I'd almost forgotten their deadline was coming up soon, too. Another wrapped-up body hung from the rafters somewhere. Or will they have wings this time? I should talk to Dean to see how they're doing on the case.
I shake my head and give Seb a smile. "I'm sorry, I'm such morose company. Let’s talk about something cheery."
Seb smiles. He's wearing a high-necked sweater, a little too big for him. It’s navy blue. "Cheery?"
Thunder rumbles outside, the rain pouring harder, as though to punctuate what an odd suggestion such a thing might be.
***
Seb is so awkward that it’s kind of cute as I smile and wave goodbye to him in the middle of the station floor. He ducks away, probably blushing, back to his lab, and I'm still smiling as I turn for Dirk's desk.
He's sitting back in his chair, watching me with a raised eyebrow as I come and perch on the corner of his desk. "Nice lunch?" he asks with a smirk.
"Lovely, actually. Cheery, even."
"Oh yeah?"
I click my tongue. "Come on, don't look at me like that. He's shy, but he's nice. I need some nice."
As though in surrender, he lifts his hands. “Hey, I think it’s good. I’m surprised, and I don’t really see it, but…”
“Don’t see it?” I cut him off, my eyebrow raised.
Dirk shrugs, smile still in place. “Maybe he’s too nice,” he teases.
“I’m nice!”
“Sure. Anyway, as I was saying, I think it’s good you’re moving on.”
“I’m not…” I stop myself. It’s okay to move on, in some ways. "Well, thanks." Meeting Dirk's somewhat cheeky gaze as he leaned far back in his chair, my gaze briefly drops to where his shirt is ruffled over his abs. Looking away as soon as I realise what I’m doing, I pull at a thread on my jeans, inwardly berating myself. He’s your partner, for God’s sake. The newly opened floodgate of my long-dormant sexuality sure is proving over-active lately.
“You know, I never asked you how well you knew my husband. You were here when he was. When I was, a bit.”
Dirk shrugs, tapping his pen on the paperwork in front of him. He pretends now to stop ignoring it, sitting up and straightening his shirt. “Yeah, we passed each other’s desks sometimes. It was a bit of a boy’s club in here back then. Didn’t have much to do with him, personally.”
I watch him. “I don’t need to be a detective to see there’s more to that.”
Dirk sighs. “Look, what does it matter what I thought of your late husband? So he could be a bit gung-ho for my taste.” He grins. “So are you.”
“You didn’t like him.” And so what? After what I've done with the potential murderer of him, that seems minor.
Dirk tilts his head side-to-side. "Well, you were the better detective. Although we didn't cross over much back then. And Caleb was good too, but he was locking you away in the suburbs and it felt… well, antiquated.”
I blink. I’d never seen it that way. Why hadn’t I? “The Cocooner was targeting female detectives then…”
“Yeah. You stopped coming in before that.”
Was that right? I suppose it was.
“Either way,” he says more lightly, “While I’m sorry for the loss, I’m glad you're back on the job.”
“What about his partner?”
“Tristan?” he shrugs. “He was a good guy. Seen a lot for his time, you could tell. Bit distant, I guess. A good balance for…” he trails off, seeming to realise he was about to speak ill of the dead. “Anyway. The Cocooner got his sister a year before he landed on the case. They were in the field a lot.” He looks closely at me. “Not been listening to more theories, have you?”
I shrug. “We should at least think about the things people are conjecturing. Back at the bar, the man I spoke to seemed to be implying the Cocooner operating now is a copycat. And with Tristan possibly the burned body… it would make sense to link him as the original Cocooner.”
“Don’t you think Caleb would have twigged on if his partner was the one he was hunting?” Dirk asks, eyes narrowing. Would he? Would I? I look away. Dirk taps his pen. “I guess anything is possible. But, I don't know, Tristan, wrapping people up like that? And his own sister?”
"A lot of people start on their family members, or people they know."
"Yeah, start . She was like third.”
“But if it was him, we could look at who he was close to, for who the new Cocooner is.”
“Well, that’s the thing. He really wasn’t close to anyone. A loner, especially after Cassandra died. She had problems; drugs, violence. They’d bounced around foster homes growing up, all each other had, I’d guess. But she was coming clean when it happened. It screwed him up. Especially the way she was found.”
I nod slowly. “The Cocooner made a mistake.” In one of Cocooner’s only mishaps, the body came loose and fell into old fertiliser, which acted as acid and left little in the way of DNA but a few strands of hair caught above by the time she was found. There was some evidence of what was left of a body being dragged away, just smears on the concrete by then. Reportedly, the scene had been a horrific one to untangle. I’m glad to not have been active during that period.
“Yeah, you really think he’d have done that to his sister? He put up missing posters for her, hanging onto the fact we couldn’t attribute her death to Cocooner because of the state of the body.”
I wrinkle my nose. I remember seeing those posters, the blond woman, a bit chubby, with a big smile but sad eyes, at least in the photo I saw, which was grainy from being blown up so big. But then, it’s hard to look at a missing poster and not see sadness somewhere. “That’s awful.”
“Yeah, it was shit to witness, too.”
"You're right," I sigh. This is convoluted. And if any of this is true, then who killed my husband?
***
He's here, now, in the room.
I know from the moment I open my eyes in the utter blackness. Usually I leave the blinds so that a little light comes in. But not now. I sit up with a gasp and feel him there before me. My chest rises and falls fast. "Needler?" I demand.
"Shhh," comes a soft hiss from the side of the room. Soft creaks on the floorboards, pressure tilting the side of the mattress. "Wouldn’t want your roommate hearing, would you?" he coos, voice low, so close. I reach out and feel his hand close over mine, just skin, no glove. The tiny hairs of my face tingle with the understanding that he's come close, his breath on my lips erotic in the utter blackness.
"You shouldn't be h…" I start, but then his mouth is on mine, hot and soft. The metal brushes cold on my cheek.
It’s then, as he's pressing me back, the blanket between us, his hips weighing down on mine, that my eyes pop open with a start. I didn't wear pants tonight. I'd finally gotten tired of wearing them just in case he showed up. So all I'm in is an oversized t-shirt, and as the blanket slides down to my waist and the shirt rides up, I'm very aware of what he promised last time.
I press up on his chest, breaking the kiss, and he slides his lips to my jaw instead. My fingers curl over the curve of his shoulder. Even with my eyes open I can hardly see. He's just a shape above me, an extra darkness. Somehow, there's no blanket between us now, and my bare thighs are trapped under the coarse material of his pants. "Fuck," I breathe, "I mustn't…"
"You mustn't. I must," he grates, low by my earlobe, which he then nips.
I feel the movements, his chest pressing on mine as he takes the weight off my hips to edge his pants down. And I don't stop it. Instead, I find his face with my hands, part flesh, part metal, drawing his mouth back onto mine. "I'm going to hell," I gasp.
He laughs, static and close. There’s another sound through our mingled breath, foil tearing.
"You have a condom?" I ask, since I can't see what he's doing as his weight leaves me momentarily.
"Well, I'm not about to give you more DNA to take to your little lab, am I?"
My jaw tightens. "Take your mask off."
His laugh is half-surprised. I say again, "Take it off. You've still got the voice changer. You know I can't see you anyway."
I can feel his suspicion on me, even in the pitch blackness. I stare back at him, or where I assume he is, from the heat on my thighs.
"That’s your condition?"
"Yes. That’s my condition."
"Very well." After a pause, I hear a shuffling, something tapping down on my bedside table, beside my head. His heat comes over me again, my hands sliding up his chest over a shirt as he kisses me, and there’s no cold metal against my cheek this time. There's only skin against skin. His belly comes flush over mine, both our shirts ridden up between us, and something else, close, prodding.
I feel his tip and gasp, jolting backward. "Shh," he sighs against my ear again. "Nice and easy, just the tip for now."
My chest rises and falls fast. In the blindness, all I can do is focus on the other sensations, the touch, the heat, the sound of his breath and the way it sweeps down my neck. He presses, the first inch foreign and promising. My breath catches, then catches again on a sharp inhale as he pushes, much more than the tip. Sharp pleasure fills my abdomen. I'm squeezed around his shaft, hyperaware, tingling all over in anticipation of more. A sound, half protest, half pleasure, escapes me.
"Quiet now," he coos, pulling my hair up from my ear. "Just a bit more… your pussy is trying to suck me in…"
“Wait,” I gasp. “I can’t.”
Hips stilling, his mouth trails up the side of my throat. “Can’t what?”
“Be quiet,” I confess in a rush.
He chuckles. “Alright.”
"Fuck, fuck," I breathe, back arching, hips tilting, pulling him deeper. Then he's filled me, and that sensation of him flush against me, his cock deep, is all-consuming.
"You're a noisy one, huh?" he murmurs, and I feel as much as hear his grin against my ear before his hand creeps over my mouth, muffling my panting moans as he starts to grind against me. "That's okay."
In my absence of thought, in losing myself to the long-denied sensations, I forget myself, and my fingers reach for his face. I barely brush his cheek, rough with stubble, before he snatches my hand away, then my other, and pins them up above my head. "Don't break our rules now," he grates, pressing faster, rougher, for one thrust.
He lets go of my hands, his fingers gripping over my mouth and sliding down to my throat. I can’t touch him, and I don’t try again, but somehow that only elevates my need, a burn deep inside me that grows hotter each time he slides in deep. My legs wrap around his hips in response, moving with him, squeezing in time to his thrusts to feel them more, my head falling back against the pillow.
"God, don't stop that," I gasp.
His laugh cuts short, hand tightening incrementally against the sides of my throat. “Oh, I won’t.” I curse a hiss through my teeth, feeling the anticipation of climax build up into my chest. Feeling it too, he growls in my ear, “I need to feel you come around me. You're already squeezing me so well. Don't you stop," he adds the last as I falter, drawing back from the precipice, and pulls me right back in.
Then everything is here, gripping me and I grip him, absorbing his soft curse as my world falls away and all I know for those moments is this thing in the darkness. My moan of pleasure and relief is muffled through his mouth as he swallows my cry.
As sense comes back, the pleasure still at a high, I'm able to wonder how I went so long without this, and then, as the sensation turns intense, almost too much, I gasp through his rough peak, and an earlier thought returns.
I'm definitely going to hell.
But if any place is almost there already, it’s Tregam.
***
In the light of day, the night seeming far away; I step out into my living room to see Olivia dragging a suitcase out of her room, a large sunhat shading her face from the fluorescent light.
I press my palm to the side of my head, squinting. I feel hungover even though I didn't touch a drop. "Going somewhere?"
Olivia looks up, balanced on canvas wedges, her skinny white legs sticking out of the bottom of a yellow sundress. She seems so incongruous, so out of place in this grey and dreary world, that I can only stare, trying to coax myself to wakefulness. "Yeah, I'm going away with Shane, remember?"
I stare at her while she beams back at me, oblivious to the fact that she is the only thing standing between me and regular visits from a serial killer. Shaking my head once, I say, "Oh yeah, right." I clear my throat since my voice has faded to nothing. "Yeah… how long, again?"
"Little over two weeks," she tells me brightly.
Swaying a little, I clear my throat again. "That'll be lovely."
"Give you the run of the place for a bit!" she winks. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do!"
Blinking, I suddenly have to wonder if I already have.
***
Today is a Cocooner case day, thank goodness. I don't think I could have handled sitting there watching Chloe present a slideshow on Needler. The merge of that with thoughts of last night, how good everything had felt when it really shouldn’t have. I should probably lay a trap for him. That would be the smart thing to do.
Even as it is, I have trouble focusing. Any thought toward my husband turns my stomach. But Needler didn't… I mean, he might not be the one to have killed him. There’s got to be another explanation.
"El? You with us?"
I jolt back to the present, away from the feel of his breath under my ear, the burning release… Dirk has raised an eyebrow at me. "Not sleeping well still?" he asks.
I shake my head. Chloe is waiting on a slide, face bright and ready. Dean and Howie, over at the other desk facing the projector wall, look almost as drained as I feel, sparing a grimace at the slide. It’s not the most gruesome one, but the thoughts it leads to… It’s a flow chart of how we think Cocooner kills their victims. Knocking out, tying up, slow plastering, wrapping in bandages, plastering over them again to make a smooth shell from the feet up. Arms down, if it’s the cocoon style, splayed wide if it’s a later stage. The face, then nose and mouth, are always last. The suffocation, drowning in plaster, still going on while they're strung up.
I look away. God, what kind of place is this? To birth someone who could do that.
"You're looking pale, El. We've seen all this before."
"I know, I'm just feeling under the weather. Keep going."
Chloe turns back, pressing the button to change to the next scene. That map of the Cocooner scenes this year. The one that niggles me. There's something there, but it escapes me, to where I’ve convinced myself that I’m just imagining any pattern, a trick my brain is playing.
"Looks like you got a visitor."
I look up. Seb is in the doorway, looking slightly bashful.
"Shit." I curse. I'd completely forgotten that we'd planned to get breakfast. "I'm sorry, Seb, I can't…" I start to say.
Dirk waves a hand. "Just go. Maybe a break will help. Let’s all take a breather," he says to the room. I catch his eye, recalling his feelings on dying in the way the Cocooner constructs. This detailed look into the method of death can’t be pleasant for him, either. Perhaps it’s nightmare fuel. He gives me a somewhat thin smile, nodding towards Seb, and I take my out.
As I leave, I hear Howie's back creaking with a long stretch, and then the door taps closed as I walk down the hall with Seb. Something nice, that’s what I said I needed. So why does this feel so much less real than last night, which itself should be an impossible thing?